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Done, at least the wiring…

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 6, 2005

Well, I just got home and the electricians are done with their part of the job, running the wiring and installing receptacles etc. Now I have to clean up by patching all the drywall which will take some time, but probably couldn’t be avoided. Their wiring looks pretty good and the panel looks neat with the new circuits stapled to the backer board. So overall, a pretty chaotic three days, but probably par for the course.
So what have I learned from all this?

Even ’small’ jobs can get snafu’ed.

Write everything down (even small stuff) which helped when I had to create a list of what needed to be completed when I wasn’t here.

Explain, clarify in person when the job is starting.

Have lots of bandages on hand.

What can go wrong will go wrong

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 5, 2005

So I get a call from the Office of the electricians we are using. The guy on the phone says that he didn’t want to tell me, but the technician who is supposed to be doing the job today had to go the hospital this morning for a CAT scan(!). What are you supposed to say to that? I asked if they were sure he was supposed to be doing work. They assured me that this would be fine. Later I talked to him, and it was an ultrasound, not a cat scan.
So as a result they don’t show up till about 11, and they have 2 guys (1 electrician and an apprentice) so they hope to finish what was supposed to be a 2 day job in 1 day. I was a bit sceptical, but wanted to believe that it could be done.
I show them what I want done and they didn’t have the right wire, so one guy has to go to the Depot to get the stuff. They get to work and everything seems to be going along alright until around 3:30 when they say that it will be difficult to install the GFI near the sink as the box is too deep for the wall. I see that they have pulled wire up to the main floor already so they go ahead and start channelling out the lath and plaster to bring the wire up to counter height.

Wire pulled for 3-way switch.

I go back upstairs to work and then I hear this loud noise. I go down to check and the guy who was using the Sawzall says, “I gotta go to the hospital. I cut my finger off.” I offer to drive him but he says that the other guy will drive, but they need the location of the hospital. I tell them and clean the guys finger a bit (it wasn’t really cut off) and they start to go at around 4:30.
As I am getting them into the van the Parking Cop comes by and tries to give them a ticket on their other van. I explain what happened and the guy says, “Ok, I won’t be giving you a ticket, but some other officer else might…”
Ugh, so I get the keys for the other van from the guys, they drive off to the hospital and I have to find someplace to move this van so it doesn’t get a ticket.
After doing this I get back to the house and start doing more work. There’s a knock on the door and the second guy is back to clean up after dropping the other one off at the hospital. So he parks around back and cleans up the various tools and wire and loads that stuff into the van and drives off.
Just after this Kim notices that it seems a little cold in the house and in fact because they had to stop everything suddenly, they were not able to feed the panel and as a result the furnace was not hooked up.
I called the office for the, I don’t know, tenth time and told them that and they said they’d call me back. I also agreed to send them a list with what needed to be done to finish as they weren’t sure who would be coming the next day.

Channel partly cut in wall for counter outlet GFI.

So a quick recap: Here we are in a cold house, with no power in the back half of the house (no stove or microwave) waiting for someone to call us back to see if we can get our heat back on.
Sure enough the call comes in: someone will be by later that evening. Around 8 who shows up? Both the guys from earlier! Except now that now he has a huge bandage around his finger. “Six stitches,” he said. I said I feel bad; twice today you’ve had to come directly from the hospital to do work on my house. That’s awful. He said no problem; he will direct the other guy on how to hook up the furnace feed to the panel.
Well, it worked so the heat came on and I had to send the office this fax with the stuff that needed to be done, but the fax, wait for it, was on one of the circuits that was shut off. I had to run an extension cord from another room to get it to turn on.
I really forget how dependent we are on power.

One day to do their job.

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 5, 2005

Heard from the electrician late yesterday that they will be here this morning with 2 guys (rather than one) so they can hopefully finish the job in one long day. That would be great!

Bit More Demo

Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 31, 2005

A slight bit more demo last night. Took out the drywall on a wall for the furnace room; one which I though I would not have to tear down. Tonight have to rip out the studs and rebuild as it has to be extended for the door to the work/laundry area. Behind this wall are two jackposts which were put in years ago that I sure don’t want to touch, so I will just build around them. I have studs left over from the closet project Graham did, so hopefully I will have enough wood to construct all this.

Existing joists with plywood laminated and blocking installed.

I also took a look at the return air duct because I need to put in a floor level return and route it to the return duct which is attached to the ceiling. I put my hand up there (behind the water pipes, wires etc.) and found that there is a huge hole in the duct on the top surface. Normally this is not a problem since the way the return is done, there is sheet metal covering the joist space so that becomes the plenum for the return air. The problem is that the joist space is open on the other end so air just gets sucked in from between the wall and the floor. After the electricians finish with the wiring I will go in and close it off and route a return to the floor level.